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A Streetcar Named Desire - Melbourne Theatre Company (VIC)
Written by Tennessee Williams
this moving production demonstrates how a text that stands tall in the literary canon doesn’t always need to be forced through a modernity-shaped hole to retain value for a modern audience
Reviewed by Caitlin A. Kearney
Arts Centre, Melbourne
Until 17th August, 2024
It’s been fifteen years since I was lucky enough to see Cate Blanchett take that rattle-trap streetcar named Desire, transfer to one called Cemeteries, ride six blocks, and get off at Sydney Theatre Company. Naturally the details of that performance are in soft focus by now, but when your clearest mental picture of Blanche DuBois is Cate, the bar is set considerably high. However, this is not a review-by-comparison, because we live in 2024 where it’s Nikki Shiels’ world and we’re all just watching. To be awfully Australian and understated about it, it’s not at all a bad state of affairs.
Working within the rotating dollhouse set, Shiels takes on the immense task of the famously grand and unsteady Southern belle with infectiously youthful energy. There is a palpable sense here that a key part of Blanche is even younger than she wants everyone to think she is. Whilst the character frets almost compulsively about being “old” and washed up, Shiels delivers a version of the role that captivates with a kind of childlike openness and an innocence that somewhat terrifies and makes one feel instinctively protective. On the other side of the coin, this only makes it easier for us to laugh with and at her, because it would be a shame to forget that this play is actually very funny, and that no character in it is dryer or more dizzyingly chaotic than Blanche. At times it does veer dangerously close to feeling farcical, but the direction generally seems to pull things back just in time. It almost goes without saying that the fate of a production of Streetcar rests very heavily on the quality of its Blanche. Given that the essence of Blanche is that of a person hanging onto the land of the living by a thread, it is interesting that Shiels’ interpretation is noteworthy for its aliveness because one would think that particular contrast would be essential for any interpretation of this character. It’s as if the awareness of her disposition makes this Blanche thrum with a very specific anxiety conducive to too-sharp periods of awakeness before she retreats once more into fantasy.
Photos by Pia Johnson
Meanwhile, Mark Leonard Winter’s Stanley seamlessly blends humouring Blanche with terrorising her in a way that catches us off guard at regular intervals and causes us to become increasingly unsettled by them as a pair. Past well-known productions of Streetcar have had something of a focus on aligning the audience’s sympathy with Stanley. I find that this tends not to work overly well- not simply because Stanley is after all a violent, controlling drunk, but because we should not be denied the full potential to feel Blanche’s pain. Here, we want her to win. We want her to be okay. We know, of course, that she won’t, and that perhaps she has never been. Stanley doesn’t see Blanche the way we increasingly do- as a fragile soul shattered by circumstance and cobbled back together imperfectly. He sees her as a calculating, well-to-do layabout who’s been knocked off her perch and is spoiling to take a few more knocks. He sees her as a threat to the unquestioned control he has always had over his world, and one that will act as a poison to Stella and the rest of their community if not eliminated at any cost.
Shiels delivers a version of the role that captivates with a kind of childlike openness and an innocence that somewhat terrifies and makes one feel instinctively protective.
Speaking of Stella, Michelle Lim Davidson’s representation is most impactful in the scene when she is calmly dismissing Blanche’s horror at Stanley putting his hands on her. The discomfort it causes to watch Blanche try to compute that Stella has no intention of leaving Stanley is nauseatingly familiar from our current viewpoint amidst this country’s current domestic violence crisis. When it comes to Stella’s immediate responses to Stanley’s abuse, I should note that it is never particularly useful to assess the 'realism' of a performed trauma response, as these are often inspired by such varied and personal experiences in life. In the context of an otherwise dialogue-heavy stage show, the rawness does tend quite close to becoming unwatchable, but perhaps that is necessary. The set is beautiful but curiously sparsely dressed in places and its potential is perhaps not fully harnessed.
Why do we still stage Tennessee Williams? Well, on the whole, this production directed by Anne-Louise Sarks is a good example of how a text that stands tall in the literary canon doesn’t always need to be forced through a modernity-shaped hole to retain value for a modern audience. Blanche may famously have relied on the kindness of strangers, but this production is earning its audience’s respect and approval fair and square.
Produced by Melbourne Theatre Company
Written by Tennessee Williams
Director: Anne-Louise Sarks
Set and Costume Designer: Mel Page
Lighting Designer: Niklas Pajanti
Music: Stefan Gregory
Intimacy Coordinator: Amy Cater
Voice and Dialect Coach: Geraldine Cook-Dafner
Fight Director: Nigel Poulton
Assistant Director: Joe Paradise Lui
Assistant Set and Costume Designer: Bianca Pardo
Cast: Gabriella Barbagallo, Kaya Byrne, Michelle Lim Davidson, Stephen Lopez, Steve Mouzakis, Veronica Peña Negrette, Nikki Shiels, Katherine Tonkin, Mark Leonard Winter, Gareth Yuen
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